I think there's a logical explanation for why being born at a particular time of year might have an effect on how your personality develops, and that's that the time of year you're born determines where you are placed within your cohort at school. Only just old enough for this year's intake? You're more likely to be shorter and weaker than everyone else on the sports team. Almost too old, but just squeaked in? You have both a physical and mental advantage over everyone else.
While 'horoscopes' might not have any basis in reality, it's not unimaginable to me that groups of personalities might arise who all share a particular birth month.
There could be something to the horoscope thing. Someone born in winter will have slightly different initial conditions than someone born in summer. Seasonal variations could affect early years.
That's not even getting into how month-of-birth could affect how a child fits into the school system. Some months will be on average older than their classmates, some younger.
I think the second effect is probably stronger in the modern (air-conditioned, artificially-lit, state-schooled) era.
Since the four seasons cause major variations in human activities and behavior, it’s quite plausible to me that the month a child is born, and therefore the sequencing of early childhood experiences during critical brain development, could have a statistically measurable effect on personality traits across a population.
However, I haven’t heard a remotely plausible explanation for the position of celestial objects at the moment of birth having an impact on personality traits.
Or, as I’m told, that’s the Libra in me coming out!
The interesting thing about astrology is that there probably ARE personality differences between, say, a cohort who were the youngest at school versus the oldest, or who just made the cutoff point for a sports team for the year versus those who were almost a year older. Those small differences can become magnified (e.g. Malcolm Gladwell's essay on why most Hockey players were born in December - they are older, so they look like they are more competent, so they get more training, so they become more competent).
Even things like the amount of exposure to sunlight in early years may influence personality. Would be an interesting thing to look at, skipping all the woo stuff about planetary alignment etc.
The celestial objects probably have nothing to do with it besides serving as convenient and consistent identifiers, but why wouldn't the time of year of a person's birth have an effect on their development? Like if a toddler is of the age for first words in summer where long daylight and warm weather encourages interaction with more people than just immediate family vs being that age in winter where short cold days are often spent inside around the same few people. For a personal example I was a """gifted kid""" in public school a.k.a. almost a year older than many of my classmates thanks to October birthday just after the cutoff date for each school year enrollment.
Also a lot of anti-astrology screeds have an air of “I don't hate women, I just hate everything women like” lol
Astrology is obviously nonsense, but it seems plausible that the season of birth could have a personality effect: the cold dead of winter, with little fresh food vs spring etc, also from the attitudes of surrounding adults.
Of course, different near the equator, and phase-shifted in the southern hemisphere, and... much less pronounced in modern times, with supermarkets, refrigeration, air-conditioning/heating, imported foods, and wider social presence (newspapers, TV, radio, internet, phone) etc.
I am endlessly fascinated by the effect your birth month may have on you. It begins with trivial things: if you are born in summer, then by the time you are 6 months old and have developed a vague awareness of your world, "going out" means adding uncomfortably many layers of clothing and being tossed into a cold and harsh environment. Whereas if you are born in winter, your first real playtime outside is a warm and wonderful experience, with flowers and butterflies and soft grass.
But the effect on your personality may go beyond this [0]:
> The season in which babies are born can have a dramatic effect on their future risk relating to the development of conditions such as neurological disorders, including seasonal affective disorder, bipolar depression, schizophrenia and type I diabetes. Research has shown that the season a baby is born in can have a major effect on whether or not they will become a heavy smoker.
> The risk of suicide increases by 17% for people born in the spring–early summer compared with those born in the autumn–early winter
Our daughter sleeps better and longer in winter, because it gets dark early - so her birth month correlates with the amount of sleep she got in certain stages of development during the last years.
In past ages, the birth month also directly influenced how much (and what kind of) food was available in certain stages of development.
This may sound esoteric, but I really think there is some deep truth in attributing personality traits to astrological signs.
we all go too school on the same calendar cycle. But to young children one year difference can be quite significant.
this magnitude of difference diminishes with age: 50 vs 51 years old? same thing... 3 vs 4 years old? may be the difference between pooping your pants and holding it in
but consider the social consequences of shitting your pants in a semi-public setting? and add these up over your whole k12 education across millions of people.
the idea is that some psychological traits will be formed by this. and the zodiac reveals when you where born.
in summary I'm saying that taking all these things together and averaging them out may reveal psychological traits formed by an homogenized (standardized) education experience.
Astrology is almost certainly right in some respects (a stopped clock is right twice a day after all). Other than time of birth thing, I suspect some of the personality traits astrology describes are genuinely traits that humans can have (although, I'm not actually familiar with what astrology describes), they just don't correlate to birthdate/planet as claimed. Astrology was after all created by humans are familiar with human behaviour.
Regarding birth date, I would speculate that one of the most significant effects it has on modern children is how far through the school year they are born (and thus whether they are one of the older children or one of the younger children in their cohort). As you say, it's likely that there's some effect. I personally somewhat doubt it's causes differences in personality anywhere near as drastic the kind that astrology claims.
>Speaking of stereotypes, if anyone takes astrology seriously
I agree. One potential rub though is the time of year you're born impacts your relative age to your peers when entering school. This absolutely _would_ shift things subtly, but it has nothing to do with star patterns.
There are epigenetic markers which can identify the season or perhaps even month you were born. If you might think there is a link between personality and birth order and that perhaps metaphor is useful in storytelling or group dynamics … then one could loosely link these concepts together and consider it more than something like a party trick.
I mean, I get what you're saying, but it's not totally unreasonable to me that your relative age compared to peers in your school grade cohort could lead to correlated personality traits. I would expect a tremendous amount of noise, but I wouldn't be shocked to see a signal in that.
Astrology sign is an information preserving transformation on relative age to within a couple months of precision.
> However, I haven’t heard a remotely plausible explanation for the position of celestial objects at the moment of birth having an impact on personality traits.
One "remotely plausible" explanation I have heard is that it's correlation rather than causation. The same (possibly unknown or not well understood) root cause could give rise both to celestial events and to events in your own life.
Another is that the time of year (not to mention the year itself) that you are born can have a strong affect on your early development, your personality, and ultimately your life - though presumably it would be different in the northern vs. summer hemisphere.
And of course the sun and moon directly influence weather and tides and can affect human behavior and biology.
unlike astrology which suggests that differences in
personality are due to astral bodies
Tangential, but: I wonder if astrology might have been accidentally correct in some ways.
Clearly astrological bodies have no actual influence on us. I'm not that crazy.
However, mightn't the time of year of birth have a big influence? The amount of sunlight received, activities undertaken, and foods eaten by the expectant mother and newborn baby will vary based on time of year. The differences may be minor today, but would have been pretty profound in antiquity.
Imagine being born two thousand years ago in the northern latitudes during the deep winter. Mother and child experience six months of darkness, eating preserved and salted foods. Now imagine the opposite. You are born during summer. Mother and child get lots of sunlight and fresh food. Surely there are effects! I think it would be surprising if there were none.
What’s wrong with star signs? It can be easily explained:
- people born after the start of the school year are a lot older when they go to school. That skews this a lot. You’re larger, stronger, more developed. That gives you a huge advantage. 6 months at that point is 10% of your life, maybe even more
People born during the winter (I think) have more exposure to sunlight after the first few months of being inside/protected.
With just these two influences you can explain quite some traits of star signs
There are indeed measured weak correlations between seasons and personality. Things like your odds of being bipolar are higher if you were born in late winter, and lower for summer/early fall. (The same correlations exist in the Southern hemisphere, but with the obvious 6 month shift.)
However there aren't correlations between those known correlations and the traits that astrology says that you should have. Therefore there is no known correlation between your astrological description and your personality. And yes, people have attempted to measure this.
While 'horoscopes' might not have any basis in reality, it's not unimaginable to me that groups of personalities might arise who all share a particular birth month.
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